The Thanatos Syndrome

to get the women out of sight. Mrs. Cheney! Teddies up!”
    Van Dorn has knocked off the sheriff’s hat and is biting the top of his head.
    Mrs. Cheney, who in fact has shrunk away from the fight, elbows looped over her head, arms flailing, is only too glad to have something to do, pulls her teddies up. I take her by the hand and Mrs. Brunette, who is no problem, who in fact is as docile as can be, her dress falling in place over her complex undergarments as she stands, take them both into the bathroom, reassuring them with nods and pats, close the door behind them. “Stay, ladies!”
    Coach and Mr. Brunette are still excited, forgetting their submissive bachelor status. Coach is stamping with both feet, pooching his lips and making, I think, his hoo hoo sound, all the while looking around for Mrs. Cheney.
    Mr. Brunette, standing, nattering, exposes himself, pulls down his mostly shot-away trousers, takes hold of himself, and starts for the stairs—looking for Mrs. Brunette? to become the new patriarch?
    I grab Mr. Brunette, pull him toward the pantry, holler “Snickers!” to Coach as we pass. He follows willingly, loping along, stamping both feet.
    The uncle has an armful of Snickers, having broken the glass of the dispenser.
    The bachelors are content for the moment to gorge on Snickers in the pantry.
    The women are quiet in the bathroom.
    With the women out of sight, Van Dorn subsides, leaves off biting the sheriff, and instead cuffs him about in the showy, spurious, not unfriendly fashion of professional wrestlers. It is no problem to lure him away from the sheriff altogether with the Snickers. I tuck the candy in his coat pocket as one might do with a visiting child, head him for the pantry with a pat. Van is quite himself for an instant, noodles me around the neck with an ol’ boy hug. “Thanks for everything, Tom,” he says in husky, unironic, camaradic voice. “Thanks for everything, Tom.” But before I can answer, he’s clapping with his fingers, and off he goes, stooping and knuckling along to the pantry for more Snickers.
    In no time at all, with the women out of sight, the sheriff is back in control, helped up and brushed off by his deputies, and has put on his hat to cover his bleeding head.
    He too thanks me, shaking hands at length, with a sincerity which seems to preempt apologies. “I sho want to tell you, Doctor,” he says, keeping hold of my hand without embarrassment, “how much I apprishiate your professional input with this case. I mean, we got us some sick folks here! I may be able to handle criminal perpetrators of all kinds and some forensic cases—I’ve done quite a bit of reading on the subject, in fact—but when you get into real mental illness such as this”—he nods toward the deputies, who are keeping an eye on the pantry and bathroom, from which issue no longer roars and great thumps but smaller, happier sounds, squeals, clicks, and a few stomps—“I leave it to you, Doc.” He gives my hand a last pump.
    â€œThanks, Sheriff. I’ll leave them to you.”
    â€œWe’ll need you and Miss Lucy—all y’all, in fact—to come down and give affidavits.”
    â€œSure thing.”
    We part as co-defenders of the medico-legal and criminal-justice system.
    I am always amazed and not displeased by the human capacity—is it American? or is it merely Southern?—for escaping dishonor and humiliation, for turning an occasion of ill will not only into something less but into a kind of access of friendship. Both the sheriff and Van Dorn, as they pass, transmit to me by certain comradely nods, ducks of head, clucks of tongue, special unspoken radiations.
    Handcuffs and restraints are not necessary. The faculty and staff of Belle Ame troop past in more or less good order, even a certain weary bonhomie all too commonplace after too-long, too-boring faculty meetings.
    The uncle, Vergil, and I watch in the doorway as the squad cars leave.
    â€œYou want to know what I think of that bunch of preverts and those asshole redneck so-called lawmen—I mean, which is worse?” asks the uncle.
    â€œNo,” I say.
    â€œWhy don’t I make sure Lurine, Mrs. Cheney, gets home safe,” says the uncle.
    â€œNo.”
    Vergil says nothing, gazes speculatively at the sky as if it were another day in the soybean harvest.
    I look at my watch. “I have to go. Here’s what